By Nicole Thompson, The Canadian Press, August 29, 2024.
Author Jenny Heijun Wills poses for a portrait on the release date of her latest book, “Everything and Nothing At All,” in Toronto on Tuesday, August 27, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paige Taylor WhiteTORONTO – For Jenny Heijun Wills, privacy is protection.
In her two books – her most recent is the essay collection “Everything and Nothing at All” – the author achieves a delicate balance: she reveals deeply personal aspects of her life, but at the same time keeps parts of her personality to herself.
“Despite the fact that I continue to write about my life and some of the important people in it, I have become even more protective of those people – and in some ways of myself, but even more so of other people – and therefore quite cautious,” Wills said.
This is reflected in her entire public presence: on social media, in the promotion of her work – including this interview – and in her books themselves, she said.
“I’ve never thought about hesitation about my own experiences, what to keep back and what to share. How I do that is different. That’s another question,” said Wills, who teaches English at the University of Winnipeg.
“I also use craft to present things in a way that puts certain things in the spotlight and others on the table.”
In “Everything and Nothing At All,” published Tuesday by Knopf Canada, she writes about her relationship with beauty, language and love. The book is less a sequel to her award-winning memoir “Older Sister, Not Necessarily Related” than a companion work, she said.
Like her first book, which tells the story of her complicated reunification with her birth family, the essay collection explores the experience of being a transnational, transracial adoptee. Wills was born in South Korea and adopted by a white family from a predominantly white part of Southern Ontario.
“I think very, very carefully – and my editors are very thoughtful about this – about the other people, the other characters that I portray in my story. I am very, very protective, especially of young people,” Wills said.
“I think about consent issues all the time and, as with many things, I don’t think young people can consent to having their perspectives told in a story.”
This care is evident in “Everything and Nothing at All,” in which she writes about what it is like to become a mother to three girls in a new, non-traditional form of kinship.
She is their ummah (the Korean word for mom), her husband is their appah (the Korean word for dad), and they also have a mom who takes care of their upbringing.
Wills does not name her family members or provide details of her agreement, but explains only what is necessary to make her point: that she has not adopted her children and will not do so until they are 18 and can decide for themselves if they want to do so.
She also does not say in detail that they were separated for a while.
“I worry … that they could be taken away one by one,” she writes. “It’s happened before. They’ve seen us fight. They’ve seen us lose. Almost. They’ve seen unspeakable meanness and dishonesty thwart political idealism and moral sanctity.”
In particular, the way she writes about her children serves to protect them, she said.
“I hope that in everything I do, they see that I care deeply about their privacy and that I protect it. And when it comes to writing, it would just be a natural extension of that behavior.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published August 29, 2024.
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